New Jersey Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek is talking to private-equity firms and hedge funds about buying into his financially strapped team, sources close to the situation tell The Post.
Vanderbeek is looking to sell a majority stake, but keep operating control, sources said.
The talks, coming three weeks after the 55-year old former Wall Street executive seemed close to inking a deal with an investor to save the team, are leading some in the financial world to believe the deal has fallen apart.
If that’s so, it would be a terrible break for Vanderbeek, who is facing an Aug. 14 deadline to get the Devils’ financing in order.
Putting together a new deal from scratch in just a month would be hard.
Creditors are owed $80 million.
Without an investor to pay off overdue debts, Vanderbeek risks having the team thrust into Chapter 11 — or having the NHL push the former Lehman Brothers executive aside and take control of the franchise.
One source familiar with Vanderbeek’s moves acknowledged he was back in the market looking for cash — but insisted the first deal was done and that the executive was simply looking for a better deal.
“Jeff, being Jeff, is looking for a better deal,” the source said.
Not everyone is convinced the hockey’s team owner is skating on such solid financial footing.
“I thought it was foolish when they were telling media they had a term sheet,” a source said, referring to reports insisting a deal was nigh.
“There is a day of reckoning,” the source noted.
This season the NHL advanced the team money — and, sources said, attached conditions to the cash advance that make it easier for the league to remove Vanderbeek.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has shown some recent faith in the Devils, making the team the host for the 2013 NHL Draft.
The owner’s contentious nature is making it harder to find an investor partner, sources said.
In recent years he has irritated some influential people, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker and co-owner and philanthropist Ray Chambers.
If Vanderbeek had been hoping that Lehman’s bankruptcy administrator was going to save him by paying the $61 million claim he made to the court, he lost that opportunity last month when the court reduced his claim to a fraction of that amount.
He claimed Lehman owed him the money as part of his 2004 separation agreement.
The Devils declined to comment.